Miss Seeton's Finest Hour (A Miss Seeton Mystery) by Hamilton Crane & Heron Carvic

Author:Hamilton Crane & Heron Carvic [Crane, Hamilton]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781911440116
Publisher: Farrago
Published: 2017-02-23T05:00:00+00:00

chapter

~ 16 ~

“YOU MEAN YOU haven’t heard?” Jemima was startled by Miss Seeton’s obvious surprise. “I know everyone’s been warned not to gossip about it—careless talk, you know—but ...”

“I have heard nothing about any sabotage,” said Miss Seeton. She honestly believed this. Not for a moment did she connect the “spot of bother” Major Haynes had mentioned with something so despicable as this. “The girls with whom I travelled on the bus were, I agree, somewhat guarded in their behaviour—their conversation—but of course I took it for no more than their natural unease at the appearance of a stranger.”

Jemima favoured Miss Seeton with a swift, head-to-toe survey. The appearance of a stranger? Well, you could take that more than one way. It was probably the Hat that would have made the girls wary about gossiping too much to soon—but you had to hand it to them. They’d been told not to talk, and they hadn’t—and, goodness knew, there was more than enough to talk about ...

“Of course,” echoed Jemima, smothering a smile, “you’ve only been here five minutes, haven’t you? Still, if Sourpuss and the ministry vouch for you, I can’t see that it matters if you know. Good grief, everyone else does.”

Miss Seeton, while understanding fewer than one word in five of the story now poured out by Jemima Wilkes, was an excellent listener. She heard of problems encountered by some of the test pilots: Switch on the fuel pump at twenty-five thousand feet for a boost, and what happens? Nothing happens, that’s what! Just a loose wire, they’re told—but what good will that be when they’re out looking for Jerry? Without the pump you can’t climb much higher than twenty-five—and if you can’t climb, then Jerry’s going to be higher than you, waiting, and you a sitting duck. You might as well give up and run right back to base. She heard of undercarriage problems: First thing you check when you climb inside—but what do you do if the hydraulics say it’s down and the electrics say it isn’t? While you’re on the ground there’s no question—if it wasn’t locked down, the damn plane would fall over—but what if they decide to disagree when you’re coming in to land? You just can’t risk finding out by taking off in the first place—so back she goes to the factory again. Even the delivery pilots themselves were complaining: Those gun sights, now. They’re reflectors, so they need a lightbulb—bright in the day, dark at night. So in daylight the bulbs burn out in no time, and the pilots have three spares to save having to return to base. Well, there was I delivering a kite the other day when I happened to look at the rack of spares—and they were all duds—all three blown already!

Miss Seeton said that, of course, while she didn’t understand how a gun sight worked, she could certainly see, as it were, that a pilot with no spare bulbs wouldn’t—well, see, either—or rather, would see he had no spares but wouldn’t see the gun sights .

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